Ensnared
by 60BrokenHearts
Summary: She was ensnared by the tales, she wanted to know more... and so she did, she tumbled head over heels into just where she wanted to be... PLEASE READ!


**Ensnared**

It's a long, long story of how I came upon the trap door, but I'll simply tell you of the last few minutes before I discovered it. I was wandering around the castle, after all it was my first year, I was curious about all of the little nooks and crannies of the castle. Sure, my father and aunt and uncle had discovered most of them all those years ago, but I wanted to see them for myself, the stories just couldn't do it for me.

So I was snooping all around the castle and that's when Professor Finnigan found me. He's my favorite teacher (he tends to blow things up), but when he saw me staring at the statue of a hump-backed witch after hours, he took me back to his office and told me to stay there while he sorted something out, then he'd walk me back to the Gryffindor common room.

"Lily Luna Potter, I can't believe that you're out after curfew! Well, actually, I can considering who your family members are." He said while shuffling through the papers on his desk.

Then all of a sudden there was a shriek from outside his door followed by a giggle. Professor Finnigan left the room to see where the other out-of-bed students had gone to. As soon as the door shut behind him I was out of my seat and inspecting his walls and bookshelves. He had a few pictures of his wife, Lavender, and their children who were both already sixth years. As I crossed the room, a patch of the floor underneath my feet echoed. It didn't creak, it echoed like there was a large empty area down there.

Curiosity aroused, I lifted the corner of the rug and found myself staring at a trapdoor. I pulled on the handle, but it didn't even budge. Directing my wand at it, I muttered, "_Alohomora_!" With a soft click, the door popped up an inch above the floor.

That is how I discovered it, and now I shall continue on to tell you of the long, extravagant tale of what came after:

I lifted it up and a burst of cold, musty air flew into my face. I sneezed as I looked down into the blackness. There was no bottom in sight, but my curiosity got the best of me and I began to lower myself in. I grabbed the edge of the rug and as I let go and dropped into the inky darkness of the hidden space, I hoped that the rug would once again cover the hatch.

I plummeted down, down, down; cool air rushing all around me. I began to wonder if I was ever going to hit anything. And then there was suddenly something soft and lumpy and gratefully beneath me at long last. Because my wand was still in my hand I said the spell to illuminate my wand tip. I was sitting on a large plant that completely filled up the room's floor. It appeared to be dead; it was a hideous brownish color and was slightly shriveled.

_How strange, _I thought.

A few feet from where I'd landed there was a hole in the plant so I crawled over to it, hoping that maybe it was the way out since I saw no other way. Sure enough, I could see my wand light reflected back at me from a water puddle on the stone floor below. I dropped down and landed somewhat awkwardly, but once I was up on my feet, I looked around at the room. To one side there was a short staircase, on the other there was a hallway that twisted away and out of sight. I decided that I would take the hallway it seemed more promising than the stairs. My footsteps slapped loudly against the stones and light bounced back at me from the precipitation dripping off the walls and ceiling.

After a moment or two, I reached a heavy looking door, so I pushed it open. Bright moonlight flooded through the doorway. I edged in, wondering why this room was so brightly lit, so far under the earth. The answer was revealed to me when I looked up and saw a skylight up pretty far. I walked further into the circular room, rubble crunching underfoot the whole way. Once I was in the center, I finally looked down at the floor.

What I saw surprised me. There were dozens and dozens of bent keys with wings lying every which way all over the floor. It was a bit sad really. Dust floated through the air, having been disturbed by me, tiny wings stuck up into the air from the varieties of keys. They looked as if they'd just fallen from the sky, one day, too tired of flying around and around.

There was a large door on the other side of the room and when I reached it I saw a large, old-fashioned, brass key tossed onto the floor, wings crumpled completely. I passed through the somewhat ajar door, and into the next chamber.

This one was once more pitch black and I bumped into something that was rather hard and freezing. I took several more steps forward and when my foot clapped against something, the room illuminated itself, fires burst to life all around the perimeter of the area. Then I realized just where I was. I'd heard this story several times throughout the years, and this was the one part of it that was the most talked about, Uncle Ron was still extremely proud of it.

The giant chess board was littered with bits and pieces of giant marble Wizards chess pieces, left over from the last game over twenty years ago. My cousin, Hugo would've loved to have seen it; he adored the story of his father's victory. I quickly passed through that chamber and was terrified of what I knew was to come.

Slowly I entered into the hall where the Troll's corpse was rumored to still be. Much to my joy, it didn't stink at all anymore, and I couldn't see a huge troll body anywhere. But, unless it was my imagination, there was a pile of bones over to my left. Barely even stopping I went on to the room that was Severus Snape's obstacle. Through the gloom, I could see a table in the center of the room, seven bottles atop it. Most of the bottles appeared to be nearly full. One lay on its side, completely devoid of any liquid.

A roll of parchment was next to all of the bottles, the paper was yellowing and the ink fading from age. I took it off the table, folding it and putting it into my pocket.

The last chamber loomed before me, anticipation to see the mirror was building up inside me. My eyes instantly fell upon the golden frame of the mirror and the words '_erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_.' I stumbled over my own feet in the rush to get over to look my heart's desire in the face.

At first I couldn't see anything in it; I figured maybe it had broken after all of these years. Then the image before me cleared and I saw myself standing there, a few years older, a Head Girl's badge on my chest, Quidditch Cup in my hands... and a boy by my side. No matter which way I turned to get a better look at him, or how much I squinted, his face remained blurry. He was much taller than me, muscular looking, but other than that there were no details, though I could see that we were very much in love. I closed my eyes, trying to think of who I could possibly want the man to be.

"Ms. Potter," a voice said from far behind me.

I jumped to face the voice. Uncle Rolf (who's not really my uncle, but he's practically family) stood there in the doorway, a goofy grin on his face. "Enjoying the mirror? I hope you know you set off about twenty alarms in the Headmistress's office as soon as you opened that trapdoor."

"Sorry," I blushed. "I was just curious. I'm sorry that you had to come all the way down here just to get me. I promise I'll stop my snooping, Uncle Rolf." I walked over to him. "Can we just go back up to the rest of the castle? You can tell me all about what James did to ruin Care of Magical Creatures today."

He laughed and we began the long walk back up out of my father's historic first year fun.

Please review... And let me know if you think I should continue this, like she finds all of the other lost places that we never hear about again in the whole series.


End file.
